Legalized Pot Leads to Booming Black Market in Colorado

[InTheLight]

So much for the argument that legalizing drugs will get rid of the black market and turn that money into tax revenues...

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Camouflaged amid the legal medicinal and recreational marijuana market, the ever-adaptable underground market thrives. Some in law enforcement and on the street say it may be as strong as it’s ever been, so great is the unmet local and visitor demand.

That the black market bustles in the emerging days of legalization is not unexpected. By some reckonings, it will continue as long as residents of other states look to Colorado — and now Washington state — as the nation’s giant cannabis cookie jar. And, they add, as long as its legal retail competition keeps prices high and is taxed by state and local government at rates surpassing 30 percent.

“I don’t know who is buying for recreational use at dispensaries unless it’s white, middle-class people and out-of-towners,” Rudy Reddog Balles, a longtime community activist and mediator. “Everyone I know still has the guy on the street that they hook up with.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...gregated-black-market-for-pot?wpisrc=nl_pdmwk

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Sounds like a law enforcement problem. Also, being that the business is so new, and expensive to protect against liability & other legal issues, the article is right in saying the prices are artificially high, and a >30% tax ? Yup. that's how you create a black market.

And 80 years after prohibition is lifted, there are still black-market moonshine dealers.

And your title shouldn't be "leads to", rather, "does nothing to stop". there has always been a marijuana black market in Colorado.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

So much for the argument that legalizing drugs will get rid of the black market and turn that money into tax revenues...

From the platform of the addictions treatment community, we've told 'em that and told them that. They insisted they knew addicts and the markets driving drug use better than we did. I'd say "Told you so ... " but what's the point? I can't say it's satisfying to be right, in this case.

 

[preachinjesus]

This is, well it should, unsurprising.

One of the truths that is often suppressed by advocates for the legalization of vice crimes is that they create, on the back end, greater problems and harm more people that when the substances or practices are outlawed. Our ancestors understood this, but I suppose this generation (my generation) needs to relearn these lesson on the anvil of social pain.

Recently I was reading a study on what happens when prostitution is legalized in societies. (This is yet another "next step" for many pagans in our world) Human trafficking explodes in these areas and other sexual crimes (pedophilia, rape, etc) see increased rates as well. As a result, women are actually harmed more than helped.

 

[righteousdude2]

On NBC News this evening, they ran a story about citizens from Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas going over the border to buy pot! They mentioned that illegal possession and use of pot in Kansas has increased 61% since Colorado approved pot sales!

This problem is kin to people crossing the border into Nevada to go to the Bunny Ranch and others, for paid sex! The only difference between this vice and pot is, the bunnies are more difficult to bag up and bring over the border with you!

I wonder how long it will be before those states and others, drop the hammer and establish checkpoints at their borders, like California has for inspecting cars coming to or returning to California for fruit from another state!

Like the news stated, Colorado's new laws, have created one more border issue, and it isn't with our neighbors to the south!

 

[General Mung Beans]

This is, well it should, unsurprising.

One of the truths that is often suppressed by advocates for the legalization of vice crimes is that they create, on the back end, greater problems and harm more people that when the substances or practices are outlawed. Our ancestors understood this, but I suppose this generation (my generation) needs to relearn these lesson on the anvil of social pain.

Recently I was reading a study on what happens when prostitution is legalized in societies. (This is yet another "next step" for many pagans in our world) Human trafficking explodes in these areas and other sexual crimes (pedophilia, rape, etc) see increased rates as well. As a result, women are actually harmed more than helped.

Do you supporting banning tobacco and alcohol too for the sake of logical consistency?

 

[Revmitchell]

Why is it liberals cannot make legitimate comparisons? What in the world is so hard with that?

 

[Gina B]

People are stupid, no matter the product. Many years ago I lived in a an apartment building where the neighbors catty corner to me would go outside and smoke cigarettes. A gramma and her teenage daughter. One day I walked out there and they weren't smoking cigarettes, but it just smelled like not much. So I asked "Umm, whatcha smoking there?"
They had run out of money and were rolling up brown paper bags tight and smoking them. Serious.
One can always make money off stupidity if so inclined. Bet you anything I could sell flavored paper bag rolls to people like mentioned above, if I really wanted to. LOL But that would be pathetically wrong.

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Big-government liberals hate choice. They all want laws made to protect us from ourselves. Some are democrat. Some not.

I still say the O/P is wrong. The black market existed already.

 

[InTheLight]

Big-government liberals hate choice. They all want laws made to protect us from ourselves. Some are democrat. Some not.

I still say the O/P is wrong. The black market existed already.

Yes, it existed already. But because legal pot costs more than black market pot (largely because of taxes) and because more people are smoking pot in Colorado, there is a boom in black market pot.

 

[Bro. Curtis]

You're saying more pot is on the black market, now ? The black market sells more than it used to ? That's not in the article.

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Re-read the article. Only one authority is actually quoted, and his exact words are "may be as strong as ever".

Also, users are not being pushed into the black market because of new laws. They are simply refusing to leave it, due to the new laws.


Massachusetts had an 21 y-o drinking law before anyone did. New Hampshire's was 18 until recently.

Was it New Hampshire's fault so many 18, 19, & 20 year old died driving back to Massachusetts ?

 

[InTheLight]

Re-read the article. Only one authority is actually quoted, and his exact words are "may be as strong as ever".

Also, users are not being pushed into the black market because of new laws. They are simply refusing to leave it, due to the new laws.

Here you go... (different article)

The black market thrives. According to the director of the Rocky Mountain trafficking center, “By legalizing marijuana in Colorado, we have become the black market for about 40 other states that we can document. So instead of eliminating it, we have become it. We are also the black market for those under twenty-one.”

Are the underage getting the drug in greater numbers? One public school administrator told us that he is attending increasing numbers of private, disciplinary hearings for twelve-year olds who are daily marijuana users.

http://m.gazette.com/the-devastation-thats-happening-in-colorado/article/1522715

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Hmmm. People traveling to Colorado to buy black market pot ? I find that dubious. (Get it ? Doobie us ?)

The second link, like the first is sorely lacking in researchable facts.
There is this…..

….On our visit we met with community leaders, educators, law enforcement personnel, and researchers at the University of Colorado medical center. They are the ones assembling the evidence from the front lines, from schools, hospitals, burn centers, and treatment facilities. A portrait is emerging of considerable, and rising, damage. And yet no comprehensive study is being undertaken.

Hospitals ? Burn Centers ? Treatment facilities ? Over pot ?These are traceable. Lets see those numbers.


Also, I need to add it is nice that you are actually reading what I put up.

 

[InTheLight]

Hmmm. People traveling to Colorado to buy black market pot ? I find that dubious. (Get it ? Doobie us ?)

Actually, thanks to the Mad Cap thread I did get it. Good one.

The second link, like the first is sorely lacking in researchable facts.
There is this…..

….On our visit we met with community leaders, educators, law enforcement personnel, and researchers at the University of Colorado medical center. They are the ones assembling the evidence from the front lines, from schools, hospitals, burn centers, and treatment facilities. A portrait is emerging of considerable, and rising, damage. And yet no comprehensive study is being undertaken.

Hospitals ? Burn Centers ? Treatment facilities ? Over pot ?These are traceable. Lets see those numbers.

I would like the numbers as well. The article complained that the numbers were NOT being compiled because there was nothing in the law legalizing pot requiring that these stats be tracked.

From the article:


To get the ballot amendment passed, promises were made to the residents of*Colorado. The marijuana market would be tightly monitored, and strictly regulated, “from seed to sale.” There were assurances of no underage youth involvement, no blatant advertising to kids, no interstate trafficking, or black-market criminal cartels running operations. All transactions would be regulated, controlled, and assessed.

But none of that “assessing” is actually happening. And as we learned from a first-hand visit to Colorado this month, there is ample, clear, and disturbing evidence that each of those promised conditions is being violated, with impunity.

Also, I need to add it is nice that you are actually reading what I put up.

Clarity is a good thing.

 

[Bro. Curtis]

The Marijuana business lasted about 18 months, in Montana, before federal laws, and mis-management took it's course. It was a real comedy of errors, and one person, Jason Christ, did all the damage himself. It's best to not have folks like this involved.

I feel very strongly that federal marijuana laws are more dangerous than the drug. THE MOST DANGEROUS THING ABOUT POT IS THE POSSIBILITY OF GETTING CAUGHT WITH IT. We have too many kids doing time in federal jails who have never committed a violent crime over this.

 

[Revmitchell]

Whether the crime was violent or not they knew what the law was and broke it. If you are in federal jail you did not just get caught with a single joint for personal pleasure either.


The most dangerous thing about pot is it fries your brain and cause communities to decay.

 

[Winman]

I've been sitting at this light for over a minute, with a cop right behind me, and my car is full of pot smoke. What do I do?

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Now THAT is funny.